@stevesong said:

This seems to be the approach used by the Garritan solo violin. However, from the demos of that library available on the Garritan site (I have not heard the Garritan solo violin library other than listening to the online demos) I am not particlarly impressed with the quality of the samples themselves.

Have a listen to the version 2.0 violin which is posted at NorthernSounds. Don't know if it's on Garritan's site or not. This seems to have fixed the nasal, stringent sound in the first version. Really, pretty impressive demo.

http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/showthread.php?t=47968

Mahlon

@stevesong said:

This seems to be the approach used by the Garritan solo violin. However, from the demos of that library available on the Garritan site (I have not heard the Garritan solo violin library other than listening to the online demos) I am not particlarly impressed with the quality of the samples themselves.

Have a listen to the version 2.0 violin which is posted at NorthernSounds. Don't know if it's on Garritan's site or not. This seems to have fixed the nasal, stringent sound in the first version. Really, pretty impressive demo.

http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/showthread.php?t=47968

Mahlon
God awful racket.........

DG

@Another User said:

God awful racket.........

DG

lol. I take it you enjoyed the rendition, Daryl.

[[:|]]

@Another User said:

God awful racket.........

DG

lol. I take it you enjoyed the rendition, Daryl.

[[:|]]I'm trying very hard not to let my fingers do the walking on this one.

DG

@DG said:

God awful racket.........DG

Is there a cello too? I heard a Bach thing on a cello earlier this evening and was feeling generous.

Generosity! That was my first mistake! (Eli Wallach)

I heard this violin too, and it's not too bad apart from the fact that there doesn't seem to be enough 'behind' the sound if you understand any of that. For a sample/modeling sound it's not too bad.

I never hear enough tonal variety - this the problem with solo strings in general. But it's samples at the end of the day. A lot of modeling needs to be incorporated I suspect. Raw samples may never really cut it.

@DG said:

God awful racket.........DG

Is there a cello too? I heard a Bach thing on a cello earlier this evening and was feeling generous.

Very; I was quite overcome with your reserve [:D]

DG

@DG said:

God awful racket.........DG

Is there a cello too? I heard a Bach thing on a cello earlier this evening and was feeling generous.

Very; I was quite overcome with your reserve [:D]

DG

Yeah - but you couldn't fail to notice I was totally ignored. This what you get when you try to be subtle - and kind.

[:D]

they say cello, viola and bass will be ready at the end of the year..

@Sangit said:

they say cello, viola and bass will be ready at the end of the year..

Ready for what? Burning?

DG

The future will arrive in a future ! [[;)]]

So, we have to wait ... but I really like the sound of the VSL ... maybe some improvement with the solo wiolin could be fine ... Anyway, we'll see in an update.

[[[;)]]]

I would like to see an actual second violin.

@Sangit said:

they say cello, viola and bass will be ready at the end of the year..

Ready for what? Burning?

DG

Hehe, I understand you. My immediate reactions to these Garritans demos was very similar. But since I changed my workflow from cut&paste sample editing to performing samples I got very curious. One has to realize that the guys doing these demos aren't really that musical (man, am I arrogant...) and these instruments reflect that. The vibrato is totally controllable and you really have to know how to use it, like a violin player. These instruments don't make things easier for the composer/performer, in fact it's the other way round. They seem to be really difficult to play (well!) which is maybe not the nicest thing Garritan could do to his main customer base, after he introduced GPO. These Garritan Solo Strings in the hand of VSL users would sound very different, I'm convinced.

One still can argue about the basic tone of these instruments. But they're all realtime playable in all dynamic shades and vibrato facettes. I really like that approach.

@Sangit said:

they say cello, viola and bass will be ready at the end of the year..

Ready for what? Burning?

DG

Hehe, I understand you. My immediate reactions to these Garritans demos was very similar. But since I changed my workflow from cut&paste sample editing to performing samples I got very curious. One has to realize that the guys doing these demos aren't really that musical (man, am I arrogant...) and these instruments reflect that. The vibrato is totally controllable and you really have to know how to use it, like a violin player. These instruments don't make things easier for the composer/performer, in fact it's the other way round. They seem to be really difficult to play (well!) which is maybe not the nicest thing Garritan could do to his main customer base, after he introduced GPO. These Garritan Solo Strings in the hand of VSL users would sound very different, I'm convinced.

One still can argue about the basic tone of these instruments. But they're all realtime playable in all dynamic shades and vibrato facettes. I really like that approach.
I agree with you. The real value in theses instruments is the fact that they can be played in real time and I have always said that this is a huge deal. What I take issue with is the title of the thread;

"Could This Possibly Be One of the Best Sampled Solo Violin Demos Ever?" The answer is a resounding "Not on your life".

However, had the title been "Could This Possibly Be One of the Best Sampled Solo Violin Demos of a derivative, unimaginative, crass piece of Muzak, all played in real time, Ever?", then I might have been tempted to agree.

I must also admit that I was slightly irked by the fact that a link to this product was posted on a rival company's forum; the height of bad manners IMO.

DG

[:D]

@DG said:

I must also admit that I was slightly irked by the fact that a link to this product was posted on a rival company's forum; the height of bad manners IMO.

DG

Where was that?

fifth post in this thread ... regarding the fact it is linked here - usually you might have read some disgruntled comment from me or another moderator, but espexcially taking into account gary's dedication to sampling, i'd consider it as *just informational*.
as you know there has been actually a cooperation between garritan and VSL (cross-upgrade from GPO to opus) and we don't want to start counting referrers from other forums to ours and vice versa now ...
christian

@DG said:

I must also admit that I was slightly irked by the fact that a link to this product was posted on a rival company's forum; the height of bad manners IMO.

DG

Where was that?
Sorry, I should have been more accurate. It was a link to a thread started by the product developer telling us how good it was. I just don't think that when we are guests of VSL we should be promoting other company's products in the VSL forum, but maybe I'm just old fashioned.

Or maybe I'm just old [[:|]]

DG

@cm said:

fifth post in this thread ... regarding the fact it is linked here - usually you might have read some disgruntled comment from me or another moderator, but espexcially taking into account gary's dedication to sampling, i'd consider it as *just informational*.
as you know there has been actually a cooperation between garritan and VSL (cross-upgrade from GPO to opus) and we don't want to start counting referrers from other forums to ours and vice versa now ...
christian

How noble........ [H]

DG

@DG said:

I must also admit that I was slightly irked by the fact that a link to this product was posted on a rival company's forum; the height of bad manners IMO.

DG

Where was that?
Sorry, I should have been more accurate. It was a link to a thread started by the product developer telling us how good it was. I just don't think that when we are guests of VSL we should be promoting other company's products in the VSL forum, but maybe I'm just old fashioned.

Or maybe I'm just old [[:|]]

DG

Well, it's not even his own part of the northernsounds forum, and it wasn't linked by himself. I think it's a good thing to discuss his new range of products here, I didn't percieve it as a promotion.

I am, no doubt, the guilty party as I first brought up Garritan violin here as an example of morphing/modeling technology. I listened to the demo (I won't comment on the music itself) and found it less than ideally skillful in its deployment of the solo violin - - especially in regard to the use of vibrato and its simulation of bowing and phrasing. I'm certain that members of this forum would do a much better job with this instrument, but I still remain uncertain as to the quality of the underlying samples. With any luck, one of my colleagues will be the guinea pig and buy the Garritan violin (version 2) when it is released so I can get to hear it in person. Clearly, sampling technology is advancing and morphing/modeling will have its place especially when we get machines with 8 processing cores (early next year). In the meantime one can always mix and match (I even found the Dan Dean solo cello invaluable for certain passages of a recent string quartet realization - - so you can definitely accuse me of a lack of taste.) as well as using all available VI parameters.

--